How to hit a forehand:

Get near the ball and face it as if going to shake hands.

Meet it in front and from below in an open stance (facing the net), stroke it gently and lift it over the net.

Loading on the right foot, let the body turn to the left (for a right-hander). Of course, when your game matures, you’ll be hitting harder and harder. But this is the start in the modern game.

Brush it up and across with a windshield-wiper topspin stroke, finishing on the other side of the body, preferably over the left shoulder and pointing back. Let the back of your right hand touch your cheek.

Two-handed backhands opposite, mirror wise, using the left hand (as you did with your right one on the forehand stroke).

Why do we teach forehands in an open stance, facing the net as if you were to shake hands? Why do we have you track the ball with your hands in front? Why do we teach to hit across the ball? Why do we teach rotational strokes rather than linear? Why does “waiting” and “stalking the ball” create more time? And why many more “rebellious” concepts that fight the norm?

Oscar Wegner makes tennis one of the easiest sports to learn and to excel at.

MTM is a coaching system where you tap into human nature to produce your best results.

Instinct is the superior computation of any athlete and of every human who is immersed in observing, in perceiving in present time. Instinct is usually drowned by too much thought which includes many experiences of the past, especially those with more emotion attached to failures.

The more you think, by the way, the less you feel, not only in tennis but also in other sports and in everyday life.

MTM is coached in a way that the student is directed to and allowed to feel the optimal kinetic chain with a purity and simplicity that there is a great ratio between a minimal physical exertion compared to noticeable success results.

Thus, in developing a player, you are guiding him on a gradient scale of difficulty to achieve more and more feel, more ball rotation and more power without losing control.

In essence, not only it makes tennis an easier and faster sport to learn but also to excel at.

Not only I coached Guga Kuerten from 5 to 14 years old, but also coached Bjorn Borg in his second comeback, changed Spain’s coaching methods in 1973 in the National Tennis School, and much more through TV shows, ESPN International tips, 3 published books (1989, 1992, 2005). 11 videos and streaming, and more.

The open stance forehand has been maligned for quite some time, in favor of stepping into the ball.

This is an illusion, contrary to the best of human performance.

The most powerful, efficient and most effective kinetic chain starts rotation on the same side foot as your hitting hand, like in Martial Arts.

Rather than pushing forward, the hand pulls from the racquet, which accentuates its acceleration, as in a whip.

The left foot, for a right hander, leaves the ground during this forehand, helping pull across and backwards in an arc.

Instead of hitting on the line of the ball, as predominantly taught, realize that the best strokes are rotational.

One intends not only to apply rotation to the ball, as in topspin, but also to apply rotation to the body, maximizing its most efficient effort to power the ball and to have it land in the court.

Two-handed backhands are similarly pulling from the racquet, most efficiently loading on the left foot and open-stance. Serena and Venus Williams are a prime example of this technique.

The one-hander, slightly different, pulls across and backwards with your back.

Try this technique and you’ll see great improvement, not only to your power and topspin, but also in your ability to get your shot, no matter how hard, to land within the court.

The top pros, in their best days, do it easily. Roger Federer, who has my book and Master Strokes videos since April 2005, is back to his old days of success on groundstrokes, supplemented with a persistent attack.

One word of wisdom, here, track the ball closely with your hand/hands, then pull across, to avoid mishits.

Watch my videos/DVDs. For a small investment, you’d be on top of your world!

WHY brushing and pulling across on a circular motion is far superior and will help your feel, power and control and your body’s HEALTH!

No more tennis elbow, no more lower back, hip and knee pain!

The top pros do it easily! So should YOU!

The Zone

Focusing (and the Zone) is basically shutting off the mind and just plainly looking, observing, feeling.

You may think it’s like “meditation”, but actually is a shut-off of the mind. In other words, a different kind of operation than what we get used to by thinking.

Very young kids are very good at it, until they are “schooled” or taught that thinking is very important. It may be, but in tennis the key is observation (looking) and staying in present time. I usually have players count to five, one exactly at the bounce, then two, three, four and five, five is your stroke.

There is so much time in tennis that sometimes you have to make a pause between 4 and 5. This is not immediately grasped, as the mind makes tennis look fast, but the ball, from baseline to baseline, actually loses 60% of the speed, measured on hard courts at the US Open!

Serves, coming from higher, lose 55% of the speed.

You can count silently. Once you get used to counting, you gradually develop this awareness that time is slower, that time expands.

That’s how you get in the Zone, as described by so many great athletes and top tennis players! (and my students)

Reinforcing Instinct and Independence

A very simple but important drill is to have the student walk slowly backwards while stroking several balls fed gently and sequentially by the teacher.

I have done this drill even with pro level students.

Why? To reinforce the independence of the arm, hand and racquet from footwork, to track the ball well into its arrival into the hitting zone, and to maximize the simplicity of instinct.

Players are subject to many emergencies during match play. There is no point in adjusting your feet, your position, your distance to the ball and more, complicating the process, rather than getting to the ball and striking in the most natural way possible. This includes adjusting the hand to achieve your goal, your aim. The rest of the body, as you’ll observe, will help the hand.

Coaches need to pay heed to the player’s feel and instinct by slowing down the action in drills and practicing simplicity and minimizing the instruction as well, so the same tracking and computation can be used in any emergency and any speed of the ball.

Trust you instinct, trust your feel, trust YOURSELF!

Oscar Wegner

I will be in Atlanta, Geogia, for a series of clinics and presentations, including those of several prominent Modern Tennis Methodology coaches, next September Friday 11th, Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th.

I saw in a discussion that there was a question whether instinct can be taught.

I would define instinct as the computation of the real being within the person, the soul, the spirit.

This instinct has been influenced by billions of year of evolution, and it affects the general survival efforts of the person, family, groups, humanity as a whole, living things, the physical universe, the spiritual world, and infinity or God. *

The desire of a person to excel on any action, including tennis, is based on that. So the tennis teacher is bringing awareness in this area to the student, who adds good information to his instinctual repertoire. The trouble would come if the student (and teacher) is mislead by wrong, false data. Then the student gets derailed, and instead of causing good effects to his liking, he usually fails. So not only instinct can be taught (improved, make more precise) but can also be modified.

The problem lays on so many complications that seem to be the tendency in human nature: too much data, too many misconceptions, too many unnatural and added moves.

Kids learn to walk best on their own. They don’t need to be taught. And those who are being taught how to walk and “tennis footwork” usually don’t become the best athletes. Especially in tennis, why? Because they think of their feet, when the hand is the major cause of angles, speeds, feel, and the like, and the feet move instinctively as they discovered as a one, two or three year old.

As a teacher, I would become first an observer. See what the student likes. Few directions, show him how some top pros play and see if he likes it, and accept the student’s likes and likes-not. Everyone has a different reality, sometimes slight differences, sometimes huge. Like them how they are, make them right, gently, avoid labeling the student “wrong”!

Oscar Wegner shows how the body likes rotational moves more than hitting with linear efforts. All the top pros use mostly Oscar’s type of moves and strokes, simpler, more efficient, more natural and more powerful when wanted.

Serena an Venus Williams learned with Oscar’s techniques and both were number one in the world. Roger Federer has Oscar 2005 book and the Master Strokes I and II videos since April 1st 2005. Learn it yourself!

Learn what changed tennis around the world, exemplified by:

Serena Williams, who learned with this system as a very young child and is still #1 and the best female player ever, and her sister Venus, top player as well.

Roger Federer, who has Oscar’s book and the Master Strokes videos since 2005.

Spain as a country: Oscar changed the coaching in the National School in Barcelona, resulting in a multitude of top players from Spain.

Coaches in Moscow and Belgrade, influenced by Oscar’s 1989 book, started little girls with these techniques. Russia, in 2003, had five players who started in the same academy in the top ten women in the world. Belgrade had three top players as well.

Oscar’s ESPN International commentary for Latin America from 1994 to 2000 revolutionized coaching there, producing more top ranked players. But ESPN domestic passed on it, deeming Oscar’s “Play Like the Pros” tips too controversial, limiting the technical advances in this country.

Tennis Magazine criticized the first book as too simplistic in a 1990 editorial and never mentioned Oscar’s advances again, favoring their old advisors, also keeping the USA in the dark!